


trouble when you walked in

by susiecarter



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DC Extended Universe
Genre: Banter, Blood and Injury, Extra Treat, F/F, First Kiss, Flirting, Investigations, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Rescue, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26188369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Renee probably should've known Lois Lane was going to be trouble, with a track record like that. Nobody with half a sense of self-preservation needed Superman to show up and rescue themthatoften.Then again, Renee couldn't exactly throw stones. So really, they'd probably been screwed the second they'd set foot in the same room.
Relationships: Lois Lane/Renee Montoya
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36
Collections: Fifth DCEU Fanworks Exchange





	trouble when you walked in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



> This is late, and also not at all the epic that your request for these two absolutely deserved, Panny—but I hope you like this snippet anyway, and happy DCEU-Ex! :D
> 
> Title is, of course, Taylor Swift.

Renee probably should've known Lois Lane was going to be trouble, with a track record like that. Nobody with half a sense of self-preservation needed Superman to show up and rescue them _that_ often.

Then again, Renee couldn't exactly throw stones. So really, they'd probably been screwed the second they'd set foot in the same room.

The funniest part of the whole thing, in that way that wasn't real funny right this particular second, was that Renee had gotten herself mixed up with Lane in the first place trying to keep the Birds _out_ of trouble.

Trying to keep Helena out of trouble, to be specific. Out of every single reporter on the goddamn planet, it was Lane who'd connected the dots and figured out what the victims of the Crossbow Killer had in common: that they'd all been there the day the Bertinellis got wiped off the face of the earth.

The Bertinellis, except for Helena, which was the one thing Lane _hadn't_ known. Renee had figured it was better for everybody if it stayed that way, not least Lane herself. It had even actually felt like luck, that Lane had happened to reach out to her about it—because she'd been on the GCPD force at the time, but wasn't anymore, and Lane had figured she was likelier to be willing to talk about it than anybody who was still in good standing with the department.

Which, yeah. Fair enough.

Lane had offered to pay her, call it consulting or something. And Renee hadn't exactly been rolling in it since leaving the PD, so.

She'd figured she might as well. Take the paycheck, make sure Lane didn't find out anything she shouldn't. Help her dig up answers, as long as those answers didn't point her at Helena—bury the ones that might, when Lane wasn't looking.

Should've been simple enough.

She'd maybe felt the barest hint of foreboding. Just because Lane was so exactly her goddamn type: smart, sweet-faced, looking all harmless but crossing every single line she thought she could get away with. Pushy as hell, and way too stubborn about all the wrong things.

The wrong things, in this case, being sticking her nose as far as she could get it into the remains of Roman Sionis's business arrangements, trying to work out how he'd been connected to the whole thing, whether the Crossbow Killer had swapped MOs just for the pleasure of blowing him up and leaving the pieces floating in the bay.

Turned out he'd had his fingers in a bunch of pies that had belonged to Carmine Falcone, who hadn't much appreciated hearing that Lane was walking around asking questions about it.

The upside was that Lane and Renee had learned he was almost as interested in figuring out who the Crossbow Killer was as Lane had ever been, which was a heads-up Renee figured it was better for the Birds to have sooner rather than later.

The downside was that she and Lane had gotten themselves jumped, Renee had been shot in the shoulder, and now they were locked in a boiler room, presumably until somebody could be bothered to beat everything they knew out of them and then double-tap them both in the head.

In a word: trouble. A shitload of it.

"Don't you dare check out on me, Montoya. Come on."

Renee made a sharp noise through her teeth, grimacing. "I appreciate the first aid," she bit out, "but _motherfucker_ —"

Lane grinned down at her, all teeth, and applied even more pressure. Renee's shoulder, which was already pretty much on fire, screamed a little louder.

Renee gasped and cussed Lane out, breathless. Lane's eyebrows went up a couple times.

"Little excessive, don't you think?" she said, when Renee was done and the throb in her shoulder had settled down into just moderately excruciating agony. "Considering I'm trying to save your life here."

"Not like I'd be bleeding out over here without you," Renee bit out. "Point of fact, I wouldn't be _shot_ without you."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure somebody would've shot you sooner or later," Lane said warmly, "whether I was around or not."

" _Hah_."

She fumbled a hand up and wrapped it around Lane's wrist. Lane's expression flickered for a second.

Aw. She really was worried. Sweet.

"I'm fine, Lane."

"The hole in your shoulder suggests otherwise," Lane murmured sweetly.

"I'll _be_ fine," Renee amended pointedly, and then had to take a second to let her heavy eyes fall shut, to try to get some air into her chest where it belonged. Had it always been this hard to do? Somehow she didn't think so.

"Montoya. Montoya—Renee—"

Lane was touching her face. When had that happened? Renee struggled up out of the muffled comforting dark that had been creeping up on her, just for the sake of squinting up at Lane irritatedly.

" _What?_ "

"Eyelids got some pinholes?"

"None that I've found so far," Renee told her, "but I'd know for sure if you'd let me keep checking."

"I don't think so," Lane said, mouth slanting; and then she swallowed, throat working, those big blues suddenly huge and serious. "Just stick around, will you? We're going to get out of here, but if you're counting on me to carry you, you're shit out of luck."

"Won't need to," Renee muttered.

She'd been shot. Her shoulder hurt. She was tired, and dizzy, and she kind of wanted to throw up, except she was well aware that that definitely wasn't going to make her shoulder feel _better_. She was also trying not to stare too hard at Lane's face over her, or to think too hard about what it felt like to have Lane's free hand at the nape of her neck, Lane's fingertips absently starting to curl into her hair.

Point was, she just said it. She didn't even think about how it was going to sound to Lane until Lane was already frowning down at her, eyes narrowing.

"We won't need to," Lane repeated, thoughtful, and Renee knew her well enough by now to get that that tone of voice never meant anything good coming from her. "And why exactly is that?"

"No reason," Renee said. "What are you doing listening to anything coming out of my mouth? I got shot, I'm probably in shock or something."

"You said you were fine."

"And you said I was full of shit."

Lane looked at her, expression a parody of earnest curiosity. "So you're agreeing with me, then."

"I wouldn't go that far," Renee said, dry as she could get it.

Lois stared down at her, something calculating behind her eyes. "Someone knows we're here," she said.

"Who said that?"

"You left a message. Something. Someone knows we're here, and they're coming, and that's why you're so sure I'm not going to have to carry you out of here."

"That's a hell of a leap," Renee observed. "You an acrobat in your spare time?"

Lane didn't waver. She was still watching Renee a little too closely for comfort; and then she shook her head, and leaned harder, weight pressing into the heel of her hand where it was pinning her jacket against Renee's collarbone—fuck, fuck, god, that hurt. Renee set her jaw, clenched her teeth, and mostly didn't scream. Mostly.

"You're going to be okay, Montoya," Lane was saying, quiet steady voice, when the world was done whiting out for no good reason. "You're going to be okay. Shouldn't be much longer now."

"What?" Renee managed.

"Whatever you left for whoever you left it for, it's been hours," Lane said. "If they're not on their way, you have worse taste in friends than I think you do."

"I don't have friends," Renee informed her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Right," Lane said.

And then, in the distance somewhere above them, there was a sharp reverberating scream, a single piercing note that seemed to cut right through the walls, straight to the bone.

Dinah.

"I wonder what that could possibly have been," Renee managed, tongue clumsy in her mouth.

Lane gave her a sour purse-mouthed look. "I'm going to let that one go on account of the blood loss," she said, "instead of deciding you just think I'm an idiot."

The fight didn't sound like it took very long. Helena was obviously a lot less audible than Dinah; but Renee imagined she could almost hear the hiss of crossbolt bolts, although it was probably actually just the rush of blood in her ears.

However many guys there had been guarding them, the last one died with a thunk and a gurgle right against the door—and that noise had definitely been real, Renee decided, because Lane looked up.

Dinah didn't bother screaming the door open. She just kicked it twice, and on the second blow it swung open at a drunken angle, the dead guy still pinned to the back of it with Helena's bolt, revealing Dinah standing there with her foot up like she was ready for a third kick if it changed its mind.

"Whoa," Renee said. "The Black Canary. What a surprise."

"Jesus," Lane muttered. "Don't quit your day job."

"Don't have a day job," Renee told her.

Lane's mouth quirked.

Helena made a cranky little face and hustled in.

"Just the shoulder," Lane said, to her and Dinah; and together she and Lane started levering Renee up off the floor.

Which was—damn, okay, too much. Renee felt the head rush coming. Or maybe it was the opposite, her whole body struggling to keep any blood going up at all now that she was vertical.

But Helena was here, and Dinah was here, and Lane was going to be okay. So really, nobody had any reason to object if Renee passed out, she decided, and then did it.

The bullet came out easy, in the end. Hadn't even hit bone. The surgery was quick, and the drugs were good; Renee slept her way through the worst of it, and by the time she was awake and could check herself out against medical advice, she felt halfway human, if also gritty-eyed, mildly nauseated, and sore as hell.

Lane wasn't the last person she'd expected to see in her hospital room while she was getting her shit together and preparing to book it. If anything, Lane was reasonably high up on the list of possibles.

But Renee still hadn't exactly been counting on it.

"Lane," she said blankly.

"Montoya," Lane said, and then paused. "You know, I started thinking at about the point where I had your blood all over my hands that maybe I might as well call you Renee. And considering I've had your blood all over my hands—"

She trailed off, leading.

Renee looked away. She really did not need to start closing any kind of distance between herself and Lane. That was not a good idea.

"Lois," she heard herself say, but at least her stupid mouth had managed to keep it brisk. That was something.

"So," Lois said, warm, easygoing, conversational. "Those were the Birds of Prey, huh?"

Renee glanced over her shoulder, and didn't let the look on her face change.

"Two of them," Lois said, more quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Word on the street is, there's usually three."

"Well, how about that," Renee said.

"Yeah," Lois said, bland. "How about that."

Renee cleared her throat, and turned around, and crossed her arms. "If you got something to say, say it. Otherwise, I think we're done here. Don't you?"

But Lois didn't take the hint, because of course she didn't. She looked at Renee, and started to smile in a way that made Renee's heart pick up pointlessly in her chest; and then she closed the distance between them in a handful of deliberate strides.

"Oh, I don't know about that," she said. "I really hate to let a good story go. But I think maybe there's a way you could make it up to me."

It was almost a threat. It should have been a threat. That was what Renee had been ready for, even though it hadn't really seemed like Lois's style; even though she'd felt a stupid kind of ache in her throat, thinking how much she'd liked Lane, how much she'd started not to want it to come to this.

But Lois said it gently, lightly. Tentatively, a little. Which also wasn't really her style, except in a good way, not a bad way.

Renee swallowed. "Is that so," she said, kind of warily.

Lois tilted her head. "Buy me dinner," she suggested.

Renee looked at her, startled. "Dinner," she repeated. Because it couldn't be what it sounded like. Could it? Nobody like Lane had made a move on her in she-didn't-even-know-how-long.

Lois's mouth quirked; she reached out, and touched the back of Renee's wrist. "If you want," she added, quieter, and then bit her lip.

There was a warning in it. In it, and in the way Lois was looking at Renee, the way she swayed in and then paused for a second, long enough to see whether Renee was going to move away or something.

Renee didn't move away.

And Lois leaned in closer—touched her lips to Renee's cheek, and then, after a breath, to the corner of Renee's mouth.

"Dinner," she said again, with a lopsided smile, eyes warm.

"Okay," Renee heard herself say.

"Okay," Lois agreed. "It's a date."

She said something else, maybe. Renee didn't quite hear it. She laughed, which was just belaboring the point, really. She left.

Renee stood in the hospital room after she was gone, blinking. Her shoulder didn't really hurt that bad, she thought.

And even if it had—she was starting to think it just might have been worth it.


End file.
